Persistence in the Genes: Connecting the Dots to the Mayflower

Of the roughly 500 inquiries the Society of Mayflower Descendants in the State of New York typically fields a year, only about 100 lead to a full application.Credit
Marilynn K. Yee/The New York Times

A well-worn potato masher was a tantalizing clue.

“You’ve got to see the thing. It’s old,” Kristina Mack said. Indeed it is. According to family lore, the battered wooden utensil traveled to America from England in 1620.

But while the potato masher is a prized possession, with a place of honor in Mrs. Mack’s china cabinet in Buffalo, it is not what recently won her acceptance into one of the country’s most rarefied clubs. Instead, a stack of evidence that included birth, death and marriage certificates, cemetery records, photos of gravestones, wills and even love letters linked Mrs. Mack to William Bradford, a relative with 14 “greats” in front of the title “grandfather.”

That would be the Bradford who sailed to the New World aboard the Mayflower and became the second governor of Plymouth Colony. Her ancestral relation earned Mrs. Mack, 62, membership in the Society of Mayflower Descendants in the State of New York, which since its founding over a century ago has recognized about 5,830 New Yorkers as descendants of one of the 102 hardy souls who endured that trans-Atlantic crossing and established one of the earliest colonies in America.

Thanksgiving is a busy time for the society. Marking the Pilgrims’ first harvest celebration motivates some to dig through the attic.

But gaining entry to the society is a demanding journey that for many ends in disappointment.

Nancy Pawlikowski believes she is a descendant of Miles Standish, a Mayflower passenger and the Plymouth Colony’s military commander. “It gives me chills up and down my spine when I tell my cousins and children and grandchildren, ‘Hey, we are related to Miles Standish,’ ” said Mrs. Pawlikowski, 74, a retired secretary who lives in Rome, N.Y.

But she has not been able to prove it, at least not to the Mayflower society’s satisfaction. She spent six months gathering a file drawer’s worth of evidence, including probate court records and photos of tombstones. “We thought we had every document that it was possible to have,” she said.

She could trace her lineage back to her great-great-great-great-grandfather, Alonzo Young, but she failed to prove that he was the son of Amy Standish Young Holcomb. “It was that one generation that didn’t go through,” Mrs. Pawlikowski said.

Photo

Dianne Cummins with the coveted certificate, which bears a drawing of the Mayflower and declares her to be a Mayflower descendant. It took her two tries to be found eligible.Credit
Suzanne DeChillo/The New York Times

Sarah C. Morse, the executive director of the New York Society of Mayflower Descendants, understands the disillusionment of those whose applications fail, but says her organization has a reputation to protect and an obligation to preserve historical accuracy. She fields many inquiries from people who have no idea of the high bar to membership.

“I have to tell them that you have to do the work,” she said. “It takes a lot of time.”

It took Dianne Cummins a second try to persuade the society that she was eligible. When she first applied, Ms. Cummins, 64, an office manager who lives in Mahopac, N.Y., was told that she had mixed up two people who shared the same first and last names. She took the news in stride.

“I wasn’t raised, ‘We’re from the Mayflower,’ ” she said. “So the letdown was more like, ‘Of course, this was too much to expect.’ ”

But the society is supportive when it believes that an applicant is close to making a winning case. Ms. Cummins said she got a note from Ms. Morse encouraging her to keep trying because she had already proved her lineage back many generations.

Her research stretched over two years, but Ms. Cummins finally convinced the society that she was a descendant of James Chilton, who is considered to have been the oldest passenger and who died soon after arriving in America.

“It really does root you,” Ms. Cummins said. “We all learned about it as kids. We drew pictures of Pilgrims. We all celebrate Thanksgiving. I felt very proud that I could do it.”

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Nancy Pawlikowski, who believes she is a descendant of Miles Standish, the Plymouth Colony’s military commander. She has so far failed to prove her lineage and was rejected.Credit
Heather Ainsworth for The New York Times

Not surprisingly, the number of people seeking membership far outstrips those who actually receive the society’s coveted certificate, which bears a drawing of the Mayflower and declares them to be a Mayflower descendant “to perpetuate the memory of the Pilgrims, to maintain and defend their principles of civil and religious liberty, to honor their unfailing strength, undying courage and abiding faith, to which they committed their lives.”

Of the roughly 500 inquiries the society typically fields a year, only about 100 lead to a full application, either because people do not clear an initial screening of their potential genealogical link to the Mayflower or because they do not want to follow through with the rigorous process.

The society has actually relaxed its standards, no longer requiring applicants to submit character references from two current members. It still demands an exhaustive trove of primary documents that can include deeds, wills and birth, death and marriage certificates, as well as census data.

The society has fairly conclusively mapped out the first five generations of Mayflower descendants, helping to speed the process. But as many as 10 more generations can separate a current applicant from a presumed Mayflower ancestor.

The New York Mayflower Society limits membership to New York residents, but the General Society of Mayflower Descendants in Plymouth, Mass., the umbrella organization for all of the statewide groups, has recorded over 86,200 members across the country since it was founded in 1897.

Historians say there is a dark side to what they refer to as “lineage societies.” Mayflower societies developed, at least in part, as a “reaction to immigration” that was transforming the United States late in the 19th century, said Herb Sloan, a history professor at Barnard College. Membership, he said, conferred the notion that “we’re authentic. We’re better. We were here before. Unlike these unwashed immigrants coming to America.”

Adelaide Farah, who lives in Manhattan and has been a member of the society for decades, said she never found the group stuffy or elitist. “It doesn’t make you better,” said Ms. Farah, whose Mayflower ancestor was John Alden, a crew member on the ship. “I’m proud of what my ancestors did. They came to a place unknown to them in every way.”

Mrs. Pawlikowski, after investing so much time and emotion into her quest, is determined to find the piece missing from her proof of ancestry. “I’m going to keep searching until I find it,” she said.

A version of this article appears in print on November 28, 2013, on page A25 of the New York edition with the headline: Persistence in the Genes: Connecting the Dots To the Mayflower. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe